Android Apps Will Make Up A Substantial Portion Of Blackberry 10 Apps

RIM Blackberry, formerly known as Research In Motion, has said its two new Blackberry 10 devices, the Z10 and QWERTY-equipped Q10, will launch with 70,000 to 100,000 apps. BlackBerry vice president Martyn Mallick said 40% of those would actually be ported Android apps. Developers will be able to use the BlackBerry 10 SDK to “wrap” Android code into something the new BB10 OS can use. The SDK also transforms menu and back buttons into Blackberry-specific gestures.

Ported apps can also use a menu overlay as in the example below. By all reports these apps are working smoothly and the interface tweaks are doing the job, although often with clunky results. Blackberry is surely hoping the Android apps act as a crutch until its app store, Blackberry World, can get up to speed with plenty of solid native apps. Blackberry has a bounty program to help spur app development. The program, for which these ported apps are not eligible, promises $10,000 in revenue for native apps for the first year.

Much like Palm did, Blackberry will focus on getting developers of top mobile apps on board. Mallick said Blackberry is targeting the top 100 to 200 most used apps. He said, “There are three components to it. One is the statistical analysis – month by month, who are the top downloads on competing platforms. The second one is looking at ComScore data to say, what are the brands and services that are getting attention? The third is what I call gut feel: they live in these markets, and can say hey, we know what we see.“

Rudy is a Southern California guy who has used his tech savvy skills in a law enforcement and corporate security career. He often jokes about having a "Windows 3.1" tattoo and has the Bill Gates-like rule regarding no Apple products in the home. His two daughters (one at Cal, one in High School) have so far found a way to abide by that rule. When not glued to Android news or on Xbox live, Rudy is probably off traveling abroad. His West Hollywood apartment is littered with a few too many bikes, cameras and Android relics, but he's found a way to hide most, or some, of his toys from his wife. Rudy is a big Chargers fan, and consequently, buys beer in bulk.